Cross-site scripting carried out on websites were roughly 80% of all security vulnerabilities documented by Symantec as of 2007. You can enable noscript to block all XSS while still loading all the regular scripts. This would still load all the content that is intentionally being run on this website without putting your PC at risk. This is what I do, and I see no problem with it.

Blocking all scripts in the name of security is just done by those who aren't aware of what the real security threats are.

Ads that do something malicious (i.e direct to a site outside of VGChartz, try to download a virus), popup ads, ads that take over a browser should NOT be on here and if they are please tell me about them so I can get them removed. It is not our policy to run ads like this and it annoys me as much as it annoys you if they are there - they certainly shouldn't be.

Ads that are designed to be there and do what they do (such as the prestitial Disney XD ad, the banners on the site, the skin ads) are meant to be there and it is a case of if you don't like them then I'm sorry but that's your problem. They are as numerous, intrusive and distracting as they need to be (i.e not very in any of those cases I just listed) to cover the costs of running the site.

Any ads that blatantly shouldn't be there need to be reported to me so I can take action to the extent of removing the ad network completely if they can't be trusted.

Terms of service applies to guest as well as members. As it says in the TOS, the browsing of the site constitutes agreement. This is a standard thing.

The adblocking rule would apply to guest as well - if someone did click through with an adblocker they could be greeted with a message just like you say. It would be upto them whether to turn it off and view the content or close the window.

The site will be split as you say in the next 6 weeks actually, and no it's not a hollow threat.

It came up because I wanted to explain to people who weren't aware what the issues are.

Some of the comments and the way in which users are presenting their argument (if you did this you'd lose the community and the site wouldn't survive kinda thing) is attempting to be a power struggle. "If you do this, we'll do that and then you'll be sorry". That's not how it works here, I'm afraid. I didn't say it was a power struggle but that people seem to think it is.

I appreciate your concerns but obviously any decisions would only be made after evaluating the full impact.

You assume that VGChartz is just a forum and ignore all the other aspects that make up the site. The fact that there are normally 4-5 times as many guests as members on the site should show you that VGChartz is more of a passive site than an active site like Facebook or a forum. I don't see the survival of VGChartz as being dependant on the forum community - as great as the community is, the forums are just one small part of the whole VGChartz business.

What seems to be emerging here is a power struggle. "Hey, i've been on this site for years, I post loads and helped to build this site - you should be greatful to me and let me do what I want!" That's fantastic, and I'm certainly greatful that you've stuck with VGChartz and enjoyed coming here but at the end of the day we've provided the service to you, not the other way round!! We're creating, running, hosting and managing the site so that you can come here and post in the forum and chat about your topics of interest. We provide a service and in return we ask users to pay for that service in some way. I don't believe that is unreasonable, whether you've been on the site for 4 seconds or 4 years.

If a restriction on users with adblockers were to cause a small amount of people to take it personally and leave then that's your loss at the end of the day but if you feel unwilling to support a site that you have visited and used with such regularity then I'm afraid it wouldn't be a great loss to VGChartz.

That's interesting about splitting the site up - must have missed that somewhere along the way (I vanished for a long time after 2.0 came out because my monitor wasn't wide enough - now have new monitor, so I'm back!).

Given that, I see why it's a live issue.

My point on ToS was not that it doesn't apply to guests, but simply that because thay don't actually sign up to anything unlike members  (regardless of what the ToS says) it is far less likely to be enforceable vis-a-vis guests, at least in common law jurisdictions. Sorry to be pernickerty - just spent a day teaching bad Law students, so legal stuff still wafting around my head.

Surely you would have to have the ToS pop up and the unregistered user agree to them before the site was even displayed to even argue that they are enforceable.

*places legal hat on*

Not necessarily. There are other ways of doing it - same as the way you get landed with a whole load of terms and conditions you never heard of when you buy a railway ticket or a plane ticket.

It's all a bit slippery on the internet though, and the law isn't all that well developed, and developing differently in different places. It's possible that without payment none of it is enforceable anyway, for example, at least in common law countries. And it isn't necessarily a good thing to make it more contractual, because then you end up with the chance of being on the wrong end of a lawsuit.

It is muddy as hell.

*removes legal hat because fed up of wearing it today*